1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to surimi, or a fish paste product that is chiefly composed of the meat of a freshwater fish.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Fish paste products typified by kamaboko, hampen, chikuwa etc. are produced by the steps of processing raw fish to obtain fish meat, grinding the meat in the presence of sodium chloride and auxiliary materials to obtain a meat paste, shaping the fish meat paste and heating the same. The quality of the thus produced fish paste products is largely dependent on the raw fish used as the starting material. To take kamaboko as an example, one of the features that characterize its palatability is "ashi" (gel-strength), which pertains to the elasticity of kamaboko being cut into pieces, as well as to the crispness that is sensed when it is bitten. The stronger the "ashi", the higher the quality of kamaboko. The strength of "ashi" varies with the kinds of raw fish used as the starting materials; croaker, black marlin, lizard fish and sillaginoid produce kamaboko of strong "ashi", whereas Pacific saury, horse mackerel and other fishes having red fish meats only produce kamaboko of weak "ashi". Strong "ashi" indicates the presence of a desired gel structure in the products. A gel structure is a network structure that is formed by actomysin released from the muscle proteins. In addition to "ashi", the whiteness of the product is also appealing to consumers.
Conventionally, fish paste products have been produced directly from fresh raw fish such as croaker, sharp-toothed eel and lizard fish. However, in the face of declining catches by coastal fisheries in Japan, most of the fish paste products available today are produced from frozen surimi. While many fishes, including walleye pollack, croaker, thread bream, alfonsin, horse mackerel and sharp-toothed eel, are frozen to be used as starting materials for producing frozen surimi, walleye pollack is most common for the following two reasons: the muscle of walleye pollack has higher gel strength than other pelagic fishes and hence is suitable for producing kamaboko of strong "ashi"; secondly, the meat of walleye pollack has such a high degree of whiteness that it is also suitable for producing kamaboko of white color.
However, the catch of walleye pollack is dwindling these days and it has become difficult to insure the necessary amount of walleye pollack to produce surimi. As the amount of walleye pollack for surimi decreases, the voyage of a fishing fleet is inevitably extended, often causing an increase in the production costs. Under these circumstances, it has been desired to develop surimi that can be produced from kinds of fish other than walleye pollack.